


how to get struck off in five easy pieces

by oonaseckar



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Counseling, M/M, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Psychotherapy, psychiatry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 08:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21443149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Ralph isn't in love with the new patient, in his psychotherapeutic practice. It isn't love. It's calledtransference.
Relationships: Alec Deacon & Ralph Lanyon, Laurie Odell/Andrew Raynes, Ralph Lanyon/Laurie Odell
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from Sigmund Freud.

Confiding in Alec is usually a mistake, Ralph finds. Not so much because any advice he gives is mistaken or inadvisable. More because he's short on tact – unless you're sick in bed with an incision weeping from the stitches he put in your flesh twenty-four hours previous – and doesn't trouble to modify the volume of his voice, certainly not in the campus faculty restaurant.

"A crush on a patient? Fuck me, Ralph, do you actually need to go looking for trouble? Haven't you got enough, what with the college medical practice funding being eviscerated since Cameron's buds got the private care contract, and your old mum breathing down your neck about you getting into private practice and making some actual money? Are you jonesing to get back into surgery so much that you're having to go in for unconscious self-sabotage to get yourself fired?"

Ralph deliberately knocks his coffee over into Alec's ham and melon breakfast, both as punishment, and because the distraction might shut him up for a minute. And he leans in to hiss, at a much more discreet volume, "Not a crush, all right? Did I say _crush_, you fool? It's called _transference_: it's a well-documented psychological condition, and it's not something you get fired for, all right?"

Alec finishes mopping up latte off his plate, and lobs a few sugar packets at Ralph, catapulting with the cutlery. "Not as long as you don't do anything _about _it, no," he agrees, and his narrow face is even narrower, his look direct at Ralph calculating, assessing the likelihood, probably. "You're not planning to do anything _about _it, right?"

Ralph seizes on the breadbasket, grabs a teacake and chews it morosely. He doesn't meet Alec's eye, but that doesn't mean he's avoiding it. "Why do you think I'm telling you about it, except as a brake on unconscious drives and urges?" he grouses. "I'm monitoring my own impulses and behaviour, okay? As well as _his_. The situation's _under control._"

"Famous last words," Alec says dubiously, but he only stays three more minutes, then has to buzz off for morning ward rounds and staff meetings. He has his own problems. Ralph's a big boy, he can take care of himself.

xxx

Ralph's eleven a.m. patient is early, but he buzzes through for the receptionist to send him in anyway. Not that he's eagerly waiting, or anything. Laurie is a little shambling and sheepish as he knocks and enters, his leg obviously still bad after the accident last summer.

The rosy apples of his cheeks really clash horribly with his hair. It would be much better if Ralph could coolly think how unbecoming it is, instead of finding it wretchedly endearing. And he's a little, tentatively touched, at the thought that Laurie is inappropriately happy and excited to be here. To see him.

It's not like the college can afford actual _therapy_, as such, for students. It's not some rich old institution, with billionaire alumna funding new wings and useless, decorative departments in subjects these days regarded as purely decorative, not functional. Like archaeology, art, music, literature... anything that makes life worthwhile, as opposed to just barely possible.... By and large, for depressed, anxious or otherwise psychologically troubled students, it's a case of _stamp the paperwork, run through the standard questionnaire and ship 'em off for a bit of CBT_, or _dish out the happy pills_, or _a strictly rationed course of counselling_.

But God knows his MD was expensive, and if he's not putting it to use in Harley Street or in service of a high-end mental health BUPA-style service, then he may as well keep his hand in. And he's probably never getting back his surgical registrar posish, not after the assault took off half his hand and most of his dexterity.

He does restrict the duration of his sessions with a patient, though, since college students are subject to unusual pressures besides the angst of youth, and there are others who need care too.

Laurie's had two more sessions than Ralph normally schedules for. Not that he knows it. It's probably justifiable. The kid's confused, and needs a little guidance.

Not that he's a pliable pushover, and Ralph probably wouldn't like him as well if he was. Greetings over, Ralph runs through enquiries about how his week's gone, and progress on objectives, and then prods a little about family relationships. It's spring break soon: the boy's expected to go home to his mother and step-father, which promises fodder for nightmares.


	2. “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ralph has everything totally under control.
> 
> TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL.
> 
> TOTALLY.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Carl Jung.

And it's been charming to see his response so far, eager and imprinted, absolutely by the book, enough that Ralph's had to pull himself up and remind himself that this isn't a pickup or a seduction, and there are rules governing this interaction other than social adeptness and skill at charming a susceptible undergrad. Now Laurie remembers too, clearly, and forgets the unwilling diffidence and deference he's been enforcing upon himself. “I'm not _conflicted_,” he says, exasperated. “Everyone I know, knows I'm bi – well, pan -- not _straight_, anyway. Mostly queer. I just don't see the reason to announce to my mum and step-dad that – they'd just have a _fit_, and agonise about it for the whole holidays. They wouldn't even throw me out, which would at least give me an excuse to go down to Charles' place,and go clubbing with Hugh. Straike would want to get me _Christian_ counselling, and probably try to sign me up for a re-education camp, and agonise about what he's done wrong as a step-parent. It'd all be unbearable and idiotic and... He'd try to _understand_, that's the worst. He hasn't got the courtesy to be a _complete_ arsehole, so that I could just tell him where to go. And he loves my mum." Laurie broods, and it's excessively fetching. "He'd preach a bloody sermon about it. Not even a joke: he _would_.”

He fiddles with the toggle on his windcheater, and frowns. “I didn't come about that,” he says. He's never sounded closer to snappish. “It was about the leg. I can't adjust, that's all. I can't...” He kicks one leg with the other – very gently, since he probably hasn't brought his pain meds with him. He's so carelessly eager and hungry for life, needs a keeper, someone to look after him.

...Damn it.

The leg, that's put the kibosh on any professional athletic hopes, since a midnight drive with his friend Charles, who'd had a couple more drinks inside him than Laurie had been aware of at the time. They're still friends, though. Ralph has noted that, very thoughtfully.

“Well, I can understand a little about that,” Ralph says carefully. He doesn't look down at his hand, but he can feel that Laurie does: the hand that abruptly arrested his surgical career, and fulfilled all his old Ma's hopes. (Delightful for the old wench: just when they'd both thought her narcissistic longing for sabotage could never be fulfilled, fate stepping in and getting the job done for her.)

Now he's followed her into psychiatry and therapy, and spends his professional life coddling neurotics and tending to the egos of idiots. Well, largely. Not Laurie.

“Yeah, I know,” Laurie says. “I guess that's why I keep coming back. You do understand.” And he proffers a smile that seizes up Ralph's chest a moment, so sweet, it is, and a little sheepish. “Sorry for kicking off like a kiddie,” he offers. “I suppose the _gay_ thing _is_ an issue too. I'm the one who keeps bringing it up.”

The smile's the only thing Ralph can remember afterwards, when he's alone. It stays with him and stays, burnt on his mind's eye, so he'll have to rely on his notes to cover the actual substance of the session. Except he looks down at them, and there's nothing he can transcribe into electronic notes and permanent record, not without incriminating himself and just _asking_ for a GMC hearing. He _hasn't_ drawn hearts and flowers, and practised signing 'Mr R.R. Odell' (fuck's sake.) But _nothing_ there is strictly professional, either.

Out of control, he's _out_ of fucking _control_. Maybe another confidential chat with Alec. Old Alec won't mind.

It's an emergency.


	3. a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trouble with Alec is, he's usually right. It's infuriating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from R.D. Laing.

"Look, if it's that bad, transfer him over to someone else,” Alec suggests over the phone. (Out of town, at a conference, and Ralph suspects up to no good behind Sandy's back. Alec, however, never asks for advice, and he counts himself well out of it.) “Then you can fuck him and get him out of your mind, problem solved. I'm a fucking genius, a legend in my own Whatsapp group, no need to thank me.”

“You're the least professional medic of my acquaintance, anyhow. Shamelessly so.” Ralph is dubious, ruminative "Well, fuck off and have a nice time. Whatever you're doing. I'll have to work it out myself, some course of action that actually incorporates duty of care and the Hippocratic oath. All that old-fashioned shite, you remember that, Alec, eh?"

“I'm getting you a little scourge for your b-day, Ralph, did I tell you? You can flagellate yourself to your heart's content, hours of innocent fun. Anyway, did I tell you about Sandy? He's bingeing wedding shows on Netflix at the mo. I'm getting worried.”

Ralph cuts the call. No, Alec doesn't want advice: respects the opinion of none bar himself. But he will make Ralph listen to tales of his own home-life, as punishment for asking for any. Ralph doesn't need the advice that badly.

xxx

On the other hand, if he still hasn't curtailed Laurie's appointments, then he really only has himself to blame, Ralph reminds himself. For this, a 10.10 a.m. on a bleak Tuesday at the arse-end of the semester, and a lit-up Laurie with his feet obliviously up on the office coffee-table between them – to ease his leg, he has some excuse for being an oafish rude student lad – hands describing shapes in the air, eyes seeing visions, Saint Theresa mid-hallucination, telling Ralph all about the love of his life.

On the other hand, he really has no excuse to be here at all. No-one this bleeding happy should be allowed within a hundred yards of a shrink's office. _Bastard_.

“So on thinking it over, Andrew's probably right,” he's saying – _rapturous_, it's not overdoing it one bit to describe him as rapturous. “I can't spend the rest of my life pretending to my parents I'm a whole different person.”

“It's worked out pretty well until now,” Ralph says sourly. He can't quite manage the requisite professional detachment. _Andrew_. What a stupidly average name. “Your new friend: how do you feel about his approach to coming out in the context of a religious family background? Quaker, did you say he was?”

He bites his tongue off, nearly, not saying a damn thing about hypocrisy or double standards. A bit different, judging by friends' experiences, to be gay and a Friend, versus step-kid to a bishop from the branch of the C of E that still thinks women priests should be burnt at the stake. But he should have held back on the leading questions anyway.


	4. school is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need society as it is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before. And After.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Ivan Illich.

Ralph checked his morning's patients on the online booking system, even though he knew perfectly well what he'd find there. Odell, L.P., nine fifty five. Time he got shut of that kid, foisted him off on Hugh or someone else better equipped to help him. Ten fifty five, Hazell, R.A., another he should probably get moved on to another counselor in the university medical practice. Somehow he seemed a lot less of an urgent case, though. Provided he didn't actually start humping Ralph's leg at some point in today's session.

xxx

A first time fuck, not that either of them are virgins, its more of a _second hand rose new to you_ thing and they're lying in the sunlight pouring through Ralph's penthouse skylight. On a rumpled bed, that was reproachless and tightly made up when they fell into it groping and crying, an hour back. If anyone's counting, Ralph has come twice and Laurie once, and it's not like anyone's keeping track. But still, Ralph notes, twice versus once. Laurie's lying with his head thrown back and as limp as if he were sleeping, though his eyes are wide open and staring into the corner of the room. He's flushed all over, scratched up and well marked, well used, silent as a old dolly. Ralph has a feeling that if he started moving Laurie's limbs around to put him into a dozen different poses, then he wouldn't even protest, but just accept and hold ridiculous postures, if Ralph decreed it so. Silent passivity isn't the attraction here, though. Back when this began a million years ago, this morning, with Laurie turning up at the flat as casually pre-arranged, to pick up some lecture notes and drop them off at Durham where he was supposed to be going for a seminar, a favour he offered when it came up in conversation last week... This is getting convoluted.

Up until now there's been nothing salient done, nothing but charged glances and long pauses, secret thoughts, wonderings. Then coffee bean grinding and chat about the semester ahead and a brush against each other as Ralph reached for the milk. Turned into grabby and opportunistic, because if not now then maybe never, into a violent grope up against the fridge, Ralph's hands everywhere they'd been itching to be for weeks. And a fast frog-march to the bedroom.

It was unclear who was frog-marching whom, but they were certainly each dragging, pulling, pushing and hurrying the other along. Now Laurie's lying, shagged out, as wordless, lazing in the sunlight like a cat. He'd had plenty to say at the beginning, like there was ever a time when he didn't. Mostly raw demonstrations about how long, how fucking long it had taken for Ralph to make a move, and had he just enjoyed something about firing Laurie up with tantalizing uncertainty and dizziness, when it would happen, whether it ever would. Raw obscenities ejected out of his throat with fierce thrusts that made his pretty eyes glaze and goggle.

If Ralph is pleased with himself, to have reduced that rapid firing collection of neutrons and those flexible mobile vocal cords to stillness and inactivity, then is that so terrible? Now that he's managed it, though, he wants to set the toy ticking over again, singing and dancing, puppet set into motion by the string pulling master. And also, the score needs settling. He puts rough hands through the red-brown hair, then slaps what's available of a beautiful rump. Laurie's grizzling response is indistinct and only registers his discontent at any response, any volition, being required at all. But Ralph is galvanized, spurred into action by this boy's torpor and lassitude. Springing up, in a second, levered up and on bare feet, hustled nude and listless and grizzling still into the bathroom, into the shower. the first blast wakes him up all right. But Ralph adjusts the temperature and with a yelp grabs him by the hips, pulls him in spooning standing up and settles him all down again. It takes a bit of doing, but by the time they've run through half of greater London's available reservoirs of water supply, Laurie is relaxed and almost dozy in his arms again, wet through with his eyes closed under the blast, red-brown lashes darkened to nearly black with the weight of water they're bearing.

He's not quite as settled in mind as in body, though, a bit of rebellion still seeping through. _For Gods sake,_ he mutters, indistinct but still intelligible when you're up as close as Ralph is to him. _For God's sake, I... you..._ and has lost the thread, short of what intent he started speaking with, missing a reference point, a name.


	5. the liberation of the natural capacity for love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, how did the lads get here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Wilhelm Reich.

_Ralph_, Ralph points out gently. It's sufficiently unfamiliar he can feel Laurie still in his arms. He doesn't let it stop him for the briefest pause, works his hands slow over shoulders he's been eyeing these past many weeks, hard enough to get a few whimpers and sighs out of the recipient of his briskly untutored massage technique, then further down, arms tight enough against Laurie's rib-cage to feel every breath and every sigh, so that the lad breathes only at his discretion.

This head, wet with suds he's soaped into it, this is what he's been dreaming of. laid against his collarbone and their faces so close he could be looking out through Laurie's eyes. He puts one hand flat against Laurie's belly, pulled in parallel with his but with a curve to it that's not his own taut ascetic drum of gut under muscle and thin sparingly covered flesh, that is a boy with a beer habit and boozy mates and a pinch of indiscretion thrown in with the charm and the easy intellectual facility.

It's the tummy of someone who never wakes up and thinks _what can I allow myself to eat that wouldn't mar a perfect line and ruin ascetic self-denial,_ is what he means to comment to himself. It's permission, and licence and a terrifying two fingers to asceticism and denial.

He isn't quite sure any more who the therapist is, here.

Laurie hums a bit at the petting, and seems pleased as a cat in general. But though he eases into the caress with pleasure and consent, his body's more accepting than responding to the roundabout approach. Ralph takes a more direct route, exploring what he can get out of Laurie's dick with his good hand (after that encounter with the vehicle that put paid to his surgical career).

How the thought does intrude on the moment, and he shoves it away with enough force it would break something if it was anything that could be broken more than he is already. His hand on Laurie's cock, and working it with a zeal that would get a response out of a zucchini. Julienne, even.


	6. Chapter 6

And how they got here, that's another thing entirely. Oh, hell, and if this should ever come to light then it's _bye-bye_ and _so long_ to the withered scraps of a medical career that he's got left. Not to mention, if it should all go tits up and Laurie himself is left feeling vindictive, looking around for means to do damage.

Not that Ralph truly believes that could ever come to pass. Hazell, now that's more his style.


	7. kinda funny how you try to play innocent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Luscious Jackson's 'Energy Sucker'.

And all of this, he owes to Andrew. Because he’d _absolutely_ left it too late. Mithering and havering, about _professional ethics _and _correct procedures._ When what he _should_ have been doing, was recognising something _real_, that life was handing him on a silver plate.

Like an apple. And this Eve should have grabbed it and crunched it up like a _horse_, made a mouthful of it, leaving barely a core and a stalk.


End file.
